


Every Time We Touch

by Cocopops1995



Series: Found Family Bingo [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Found Family Bingo, Gen, Hugs, No editing we die like mne, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Touch-Starved Keith (Voltron), Touch-Starved Shiro (Voltron), i think, its a very tiny bit, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocopops1995/pseuds/Cocopops1995
Summary: Pidge notices that Shiro is touch starved and decides to do something about it. Then she notices that Keith is touch starved too and decides to do something about it.
Relationships: Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt, Shiro & Voltron Paladins
Series: Found Family Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889527
Comments: 15
Kudos: 145





	Every Time We Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VoidTiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidTiger/gifts), [Mollisan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mollisan/gifts).



> For my found family bingo card - touch starved.

Pidge notices it in Shiro first. 

In hindsight, it’s not surprising. Any touch he would have experienced in the last year would have been anything but good or comforting, so the way he flinches away from sudden touch is to be expected.

But then Pidge starts to notice little things - the slight reluctance in how he pulls out of hugs, and the way his shoulder touches and squeezes sometimes last a tad longer than normal. She keeps noticing these little moments until one day it hits her that Shiro is probably severely touch starved.

Matt once told Pidge that brains are like unshakable computers, which had prompted her to read a couple of psychology books out of curiosity (those books had told her that Matt was totally wrong and that brains can be hacked by the way) so she knows that touch starvation can lead to things like anxiety and depression. And, well. Shiro already has enough anxiety, he definitely doesn’t need anymore.

Touch starvation is largely fixable, so Pidge makes it her mission to help Shiro. It’s the least she can do after all he’d done to save her brother.

She enlists the others for help too, the more people that are involved, the better. (She’s so focused on Shiro that the look Keith gets on his face when she explains the problem doesn’t really register in her mind.)

They’re all eager to help and quickly spring into action. Hunk deals out long, tight hugs more often. Lance takes to hanging off Shiro whenever he gets the chance. Pidge follows a similar tactic. She’ll straight up climb into Shiro’s lap when they’re hanging out together. Keith follows a more subtle strategy (at least he can be subtle if he wants to?) by staying close to Shiro whenever they’re together and leaning into him, letting their arms or shoulders touch. 

Slowly but surely, the constant tension Shiro always carries in his shoulders starts to bleed out of him. It never fully goes away, but after about a week of their constantly touching him, Shiro becomes noticeably more relaxed, less likely to flinch at any unexpected touches from them. 

Then one day Pidge catches Keith hugging himself as he stares longingly at the way Hunk has Shiro wrapped up in a tight hug. She frowns at the action and suddenly remembers that Keith had spent almost an entire year living on his own in the middle of a desert with extremely limited human contact. Then she starts to go over the amount of times she’s seen Keith be touched in a positive way since they all ended up in space together and can only think of the efforts he puts in for Shiro, the shoulder action he gets from Shiro in return, and the occasional hug from Hunk. 

Suddenly a lot about Keith’s more erratic behaviour makes sense to her, and she wants to slap her forehead. Obviously the guy is just as touch starved as Shiro had been, and his tendency to shy away from the group is keeping him from getting touched enough to remedy it. 

Pidge can’t believe she hadn’t seen it earlier. But she has now so she sure as heck is going to do something about it. 

She marches over to Keith and throws her arms around his waist.

Keith stiffens at her sudden contact. “Uh, Pidge?” he asks after a moment when she doesn’t let go of him.

“Shut up.” She says. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier? Surely you would have figured out that you have the same problem as Shiro by now. You’re not stupid.”

Keith lets out a long gust of breath and shrugs. “He needed it more than I did.”

Pidge pulls away only far enough to frown fiercely up at him. “What, do you think we have a ration on hugs? There are four of us that would be happy to give you hugs when you need them.”

Keith lifts an eyebrow up at her. “Even Lance?”

Pidge snorts, “If you swallowed your pride enough to ask him, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, right.” Keith says but brings his arms up around Pidge to reciprocate the hug.

She pulls him close again and this time he melts into the hug.

“Thank you, Pidge.” he murmurs into her hair.

She squeezes him tight in response.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Shiro asks, coming over with a worried expression on his face.

Keith jerks at his voice and pulls out of Pidge’s arms.

He opens his mouth to respond but Pidge shoves him at Shiro before he can say anything.

“Hey!” Keith yelps even as Shiro catches and steadies him. 

“Keith needs hugs.” Pidge says - which is exactly the same thing she’d told the others about Shiro.

Shiro himself looks confused at her words but immediately wraps his arms around Keith even as the younger man starts spluttering at her words.

Hunk, on the other hand, catches on immediately. His eyes go wide with understanding and then turn sad. He steps forward and wraps both Keith and Shiro in a bear hug. 

Keith squawks and Shiro laughs.

Lance walks in and has a second to look confused before Pidge grabs him and pulls him toward the other three so that they end up in a big team hug. 

And Pidge thinks that as long as they have each other’s love and support, everything really will turn out okay in the end.


End file.
